It is known to store or package metallic wastes from radioactive installations such as nuclear power plants and other installations having nuclear reactors in metallic transport vessels with transport vessel covers, the radioactive waste being sealed in such vessels at least for transport purposes.
It is also known to melt such radioactive wastes to reduce the overall volume and to form a solidified mass from the melt which can be cast as an ingot or like structure in a suitable receptacle for terminal storage. In this form, radioactive materials tend to leak or otherwise pass significantly more slowly from the solidified mass.
In this connection reference may be had to German Patent Document - Open Application DE-OS No. 25 54 257 in which a transport vessel of this type for receiving radioactive wastes can be filled at a nuclear power plant and melted at a location distal to that plant.
A melting furnace is described in German Patent Document -Open Application DE-OS No. 30 02 695 which is formed with a gate so that the transport vessel can be emptied into the gate and the radioactive waste then discharged into the furnace upon the opening of the slider of this gate. It has been found that this system has the disadvantage that radioactive particles and what may be referred to as vagabond radioactivity can be liberated during such furnace filling processes. As a consequence, the furnace and the filling equipment therefore can or must form a radioactive cell which is constantly at a high level of radioactivity so that it must be especially constructed to prevent the escape of vagabond radioactivity to the environment. This is, of course, expensive and such systems are difficult to operate without at least some leakage of radioactivity.